Online Personals Watch: News on the Online Dating Industry and Business

Dating Apps Are Using Images From the Siege to Ban Rioters' Accounts

WASHINGTON POST - Jan 18 - Bumble, Tinder and others are freezing out rioters with help from law enforcement and, in some cases, their own photos. Other app users have taken matters into their own hands by striking up conversations with potential rioters and relaying their information to the FBI. Some onlookers have celebrated the viral hunt as a creative form of digital comeuppance. But some privacy advocates said the episode reveals a worrying truth about pervasive public surveillance and the opaque connections between private companies and law enforcement. Both Bumble and Match Group said they were working to remove users known to be involved in the Capitol siege from their platforms.

by Drew Harwell, Lisa Bonos & Craig Timberg
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AI Companies Offer Fake Profiles

WASHINGTON POST - Jan 7 - AI start-ups are selling images of computer-generated faces that look like the real thing, offering companies a chance to create imaginary models and "increase diversity" in their ads without needing human beings. One firm has already signed up clients, including a dating app that intends to use the images in a chatbot. The AI software used to create such faces is freely available and improving rapidly, allowing small start-ups to easily create fakes that are so convincing they can fool the human eye. The systems train on massive databases of actual faces, then attempt to replicate their features in new designs. But AI experts worry that the fakes will empower a new generation of scammers.

by Drew Harwell
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Personals Instagram Account Became Wildly Popular for Its Queer Personal Ads

WASHINGTON POST - Dec 27 - After starting in 2017, Personals Instagram page became a hugely popular place for people to meet a partner or to make a friend, attracting 60K followers. Last month, founder Kelly Rakowski took the next step of turning it into its own app, Lex, creating a rare queer-centric platform for romance and friendship. Lex was financed by a Kickstarter campaign that raised $50K. The profiles look similar to those on Personals - minimalist, no photos - but users can message privately and set geographic boundaries.

by Anying Guo
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There's an Exclusive Dating Site for the University of Maryland

WASHINGTON POST - Dec 17 - University of Maryland senior Brandon Ferrell offered his peers a free dating site called TerpMatch. Students register with a university email address, type the name of thier crush and wait. Unlike most dating services, TerpMatch does not have messaging capabilities, photos or bios. But all matches must be made by this week. Ferrell said he will close the site on the last day of the semester. He said he built TerpMatch from scratch in about six hours. He launched the site the weekend after Thanksgiving and watched ~900 students sign up the first few days. Now, ~6K students are trying to match with their classmates.

by Lauren Lumpkin
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MeetMe to Improve Its Screening for Sex Offenders

WASHINGTON POST - Dec 13 - MeetMe says it checks users to ensure they aren't convicted sex offenders by comparing the names they provide to MeetMe with online databases that list registered sex offenders. But the company has been the subject of lawsuits for allegedly enabling sexual predators to target minors. The Meet Group spokeswoman Brandyn Bissinger said they used different last names in their profile, and that is why they didn't show up in sex offender registries. "Our number one priority is providing a safe environment for our ~15M monthly users to connect and interact," Bissinger said. "We are an industry leader in promoting safety standards and are continuously working to advance our efforts." MeetMe said it will go beyond a person's username to check for sexual offenses. For instance, it will now check names on banking records when it pays streamers and check whether the names in email addresses conflict with the names users provide the company when accounts are created.

by Reed Albergotti
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Grindr Is Falling Out of Favor

WASHINGTON POST - May 20 - Grindr has received backlash for one blunder after another. The Kunlun Group's buyout of Grindr raised alarm among intelligence experts that the Chinese government might be able to gain access to the Grindr profiles of American users. The app faced scrutiny after reports indicated the app had a security issue that could expose users' precise locations and their HIV status. Also, Scott Chen, the app's straight-identified president, may not fully support marriage equality. "It still feels like an app from 2009," says Brooks Robinson, a 27-year-old marketing professional in Washington." Robinson now prefers meeting people on Scruff. In the past several years, Grindr users have widely reported that spambots and spoofed accounts run rampant. "Grindr made stalking someone a little too easy," says Dave Sarrafian, a 33-year-old artist and barista in LA.

by Jon Shadel
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More Than Half of Young People in America Don't Have a Romantic Partner

WASHINGTON POST - Mar 21 - Just over half of Americans between the ages of 18 and 34 (51%) said they do not have a steady romantic partner, according to data from the General Social Survey released this week. That 2018 figure is up significantly from 33% in 2004 - the lowest figure since the question was first asked in 1986 and up from 45% in 2016. Women are having fewer children, and they're having them later in life. The median age of first marriage is increasing. And according to a 2017 report from the Pew Research Center, among those who have never married but are open to it, most say a major reason is because they haven't found the right person.

by Lisa Bonos & Emily Guskin
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Tinder's New Ad Campaign Doesn't Want Users to Find Someone

WASHINGTON POST - Dec 13 - In the most recent Tinder and OkCupid ads, there's little mention of love or partnership. The apps are touting the joy of meeting new people yet remaining unattached. A decade ago, commercials for Match.com, eHarmony and others focused on reducing the stigma of online dating. They featured smiling, happy couples gushing about how lucky they are to have found each other. "We are pro-couples; we want people to meet people," says Jenny Campbell, Tinder's CMO. But, she adds, "We also want to be there when you're out there exploring."

by Lisa Bonos
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Grindr, the First Big Dating App For Gays, Is Falling Out of Favor

WASHINGTON POST - Dec 7 - 2018 should have been a record year for Grindr, the leading gay dating app, which touts ~27M users. Instead, the app has received backlash for one blunder after another. Early this year, the Kunlun Group's buyout of Grindr raised alarm among intelligence experts that the Chinese government might be able to gain access to the Grindr profiles of American users. Then in the spring, Grindr faced scrutiny after reports indicated the app had a security issue that could expose users' precise locations and that the company had shared sensitive data on its users' HIV status with external software vendors. Last week, news broke that Scott Chen, the app's straight-identified president, may not fully support marriage equality. In the past several years, Grindr users have widely reported that spambots and spoofed accounts run rampant. Earlier this year, a massive study by the Center for Humane Technology found that Grindr is the No. 1 app that leaves users feeling unhappy. Among its major competitors, Grindr has the lowest score on the Apple App store: a lowly two stars.

by Jon Shadel
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Law Professor Wants to Make Catfishing for Sex a Crime

WASHINGTON POST - Nov 19 - Anyone who uses an online dating site or an app knows that people don't always look like their photos. One study found that 80% of people lie in their profiles. Lies such as age or weight are harmless and easy to detect when meeting in person. But other lies are more dangerous. Some people lie to get sex and dating apps make it very easy. In a forthcoming law review, Prof Irina Manta will propose that state lawmakers confront this issue and make catfishing for sex punishable. Fines would be capped at $10K.

by Irina D. Manta
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Millennials Are Taking Their Get-out-the-vote Efforts To Tinder.

WASHINGTON POST - Nov 3 - Emily Myers has been kicked off Tinder. She was trying to register people to vote. But sending spam, campaigning or nudging people toward external websites is not allowed on Tinder. And after several days of swiping and messaging men that they should visit Vote.org to check on their registration status, Myers discovered her Tinder account was locked. Discussing political opinions with a potential mate "used to be so unsexy," says Kei Kawashima-Ginsberg, director of CIRCLE, the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University. "Now it's almost uncool to talk about unpolitical things. If you're not voting and you don't have that 'I voted' sticker, it's embarrassing." It could also keep you from getting a date. Voter turnout in midterm elections is typically low, especially among young people. In 2014, ~20% of Americans ages 18 to 29 cast a ballot, according to data from CIRCLE. For the upcoming midterms, CIRCLE notes that 34% of 18-to-24-year-olds say they're "extremely likely" to vote.

by Lisa Bonos
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Online Dating Study Looks Into Users' Messaging

WASHINGTON POST - Aug 8 - A study in the journal Science Advances described "a hierarchy of desirability" in the messaging tactics of online daters. It also found that both men and women messaged potential partners who were on average 25% more attractive than they were. The study analyzed heterosexual dating markets in an unnamed "popular, free online dating service" in four major U.S. cities: Boston, Chicago, New York and Seattle. Desirability was defined by the number of messages someone received as well as the desirability of the people sending those messages. In this study, white men and Asian women ranked highest for desirability. Men wrote more first messages than women, and women were less likely to respond to a message. Men and women also wrote longer messages to potential dates who were more desirable. Older women are less desirable, while older men are more so.

by Kate Furby
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These Redditors Made Graphics To Visualize Their Dating Lives

WASHINGTON POST - Mar 12 - Melissa McEwen is a tracker. She wears a Fitbit. She keeps a spreadsheet of hair products. When she wanted to make room in her closet, she tracked what she wore every day for more than a year, figuring out what to ditch and what to spare. And since 2015, McEwan has tracked her dating life, recording which online app she uses for each interaction and how far along the messages go. Earlier this year McEwen posted an infographic on Reddit titled "How I met my boyfriend - 6 months of dating in 2016," joining a trend of redditors sharing their personal experiences via data visualization. Other entries include "My 180 days of lesbian online dating," whose creator seemed to have better results starting with a GIF than a message, and "My last 90 days of gay social apps," which included 471 interactions, 41 photos of genitalia and sex with 27 different men. The graphics are sometimes imperfect and difficult to grasp at first glance, but they all tell a story.

by Keith Plocek
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Silicon Valley Singles Giving Up On Dating

WASHINGTON POST - Feb 18 - One thing distinguishes the Silicon Valley dating pool: The men-to-women ratio for employed, young singles in the San Jose metro area is higher here than any other major area. There were 150 men for every 100 women, compared to 125 to 100 nationwide, of never-married young people between 25 and 34 in San Jose, U.S. Census data from 2016 show. Women here said they feel outnumbered, overworked and underwhelmed by the tech industry's egos and eccentricities. Men, in return, said they feel outmatched or overlooked. In the San Francisco and San Jose areas, the marriage rate for adults ages 18 to 49 fell ~6% between 2005 and 2016. Just one in four here are married by age 30. Bumble, whose 400K users in Silicon Valley have matched up 20M times since 2014, said users here have a "lower-than-average right-swipe proportion" than other large metro areas. In other words, they typically like what they see a bit less.

by Drew Harwell
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Good Sex Or Political Compatibility? Surprising Poll Results

WASHINGTON POST - Feb 14 - Politics or good sex question is one of over 5,000 that OkCupid poses to members to help narrow down their search for a partner. Over 4.5M people have opted to answer it since it was added about a year ago, and the way they respond has a lot to do with their generation. 17% of Baby Boomers (born before 1965) and 15% of Gen X-ers (born between 1965 and 1980) choosing politics over sex. But among Millennials, which the company defines as born between 1981 and 1997, 38% choose politics over sex, and for Generation Z, born in 1998 or later, it's nearly half and half, with 48% preferring political rather than sexual compatibility. The generational differences are not surprising to Paul Taylor, author of "The Next America: Boomers, Millennials, and the Looming Generational Showdown," who noted that politics have become much more personal and polarizing in recent decades. In 1960,~5% of Americans expressed a negative reaction to the idea of their child marrying someone outside their political party, he noted, whereas in 2010, ~40% did.

by Tara Bahrampour
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